Why does this matter? China gets more than 50% discount on LNG imports from Russia is a massive sign of Russian desperation and China putting the screws to them.
Russia isn’t doing this because they really like China. This shows they have no leverage or options at this point. The big picture of money coming in for Russia greatly affects their warfighting capability. This type of agreement is worth paying attention to.
One problem: who manufactures most of the spare parts for drones? China loves those gas prices, so they might dislike those who break pipes.
it’s not a great mystery whose side China is on in this conflict.
China doesn’t really pick sides. They pick what is good for China.
and owning siberia is good economically for them.
Indeed, and Russia knows this. But hubris takes up a bigger part of their brutalist psyche than their fear of china at the moment
They just follow the money. What’s interesting is during that VJ day parade, all the media showed Xi meeting Putin. Little of it showed Xi meeting with the Serbian (EU) President who was also there, or the Slovakian (EU and NATO) Prime Minister who was there as well. Representatives from the UK and USA were also there.
China sells spare parts to Ukraine. And we don’t want to change that.
I don’t think Ukraine is incentivized to run dangerous missions in Siberia to stop Russia from selling natural gas at a massive loss.
I’m not suggesting they should. I’m saying the fact Russia HAS to do this to get any income and kiss China’s ass screams of their massive weakness.